He had a medical condition that should have disqualified him. He grew up amid what he calls "the family burning flames of alcohol." None of it mattered. He would be an airline pilot.

In this candid and affecting memoir, Russ Roberts tells how a boy's steadfast love of airplanes carried him through a turbulent childhood and taught him to chart his own course. Kirkus Reviews calls the book "a thoughtful and detailed remembrance of a life in flight," and observes that in Roberts' vivid telling, "he was always a pilot at heart."

The young Roberts gives himself over to the world of hangars, cockpits, and the men who fly. He gathers what wisdom his father and other pilots offer. He earns his pilot's license before he is old enough to drive a car. At seventeen, he becomes the youngest licensed flight instructor in the United States. His story carries the listener from the skies of Alaska to the East Coast, then on to Greenland, Iceland, and Europe. Yet the great ambition, the airline cockpit, remains out of reach.

This is more than a flying story. It is the account of a family strained by religion, drink, and money, and of a son who must decide how much of his inheritance to carry. Everything converges over the North Atlantic, in a single-engine airplane with a broken compass and ice forming on the wings. There, Roberts understands that going further, in the air and in life, means setting aside the beliefs of his formative years. He must think for himself. He must take his own risks. He must unlearn in order to fly.

Settle into the cockpit and listen. You will feel the wonder of first flight, and you will know what it costs to earn the sky.